Where there's a Will, there's a way
by Catch-Twenty-Two
Summary: William Locke, the traumatized messiah of the Mohave and capital wastes, has given up his life, humanity, and sanity to fight the good fight, but at what cost? Everyone he ever knew is dead or gone, all lost in the quest to save the wasteland. When transported to a different world, with war following in his footsteps, can he find peace? rated M for violence, art by alienomega on DA


Ch. 1: The Light at the end of a Funnel

"Sir, if I may, you appear to be quite concerned. May I inquire as to why?" A thick, metallic voice emanated from the center of the room. "HhhhhmmmmMmmmm..." was all that escaped the man in question. He stood, staring intently, expectantly, _impatiently_ at two convening walls. Pacing with an absent-mind, he was expecting to know the answer to his question already, 'what do I want to take?'

Against the walls, shelfs, lockers, boxes, and trunks contained any number of things acquired over time, but he was going to rot at this rate, so he decided to pull together his supplies and forgo indecision. He strode around the living space, the serene blue lights easing his mind, whilst grabbing supplies mostly for longevity, MRE's, bedroll, ammo, and his favorite weapons.

Still delaying answering the patient CIU, he rushes forward grabbing a gatling laser, and immediately dropped it on the floor. "No, too heavy." Still not speaking to the CIU, the traveler decided to run over to a locker and open the metal door, letting it's contents fall haphazardly on the hexcrete floor, and hopped into the pile, throw out of it various rifles and body armor, eventually pulling out a set of odd looking weapons and thigh holsters.

"AH HA! I found them! Now I just need to find my armor from that Anchorage simulation." Going back into his mode of focus, he went back to pacing around the rooms, until he found just what he was looking for. "Okay, Muggy, why do you have my stealth suit? What could you possibly do with it?"

The robot in question had a look of joy, as he did every other day, programmed for insanity and obsession whilst smiling. "I thought you were hiding a mug in the folds, I haven't searched it yet, AND I KNOW YOUR HIDING MUGS FROM ME!" Walking calmly over to Muggy, he lean down, plucked the suit from his small clamps, and swiftly kicked muggy in the face, er, screen, eliciting a thud against the wall and a "Hey!"

Quickly giving the suit a once over, checking the orange face plate, the wires, the black micro weave panels, all intact. He decidedly slipped into the suit, and pulled up his left arm to scroll through the clunky device, labeled a pipboy 3000, and silently marveled for the unteenth time at the technology given to him at his coming of age, back in the vault. Muggy took notice of his darkening features, and decided to snap him out of his musings.

"Hey you're leaving right? So can I have some mugs please! Come on!" Coming back to the real world, he started to put on his elite riot gear. "Fine, if you go into my organ room there is a compartment on the right, just press on a darkened panel of hexcrete." Muggy jumped swiftly and sped off on his one wheel, shouting back "Thanks Will!"

Before heading off to the Think Tank, he paused and went over his gear. 'Bedroll check, duffle bag of medicine and MREs check, fire lance and blaster check, blood nap check, paladin toaster check, YCS/186 check, alien blaster check, Chinese stealth suit check, elite riot gear over that check, looks like i'm ready' he thought slowly. 'So why do I feel like i'm missing something? Maybe the Dr's will tell me.'

He strapped on the thigh holsters with the alien pistols, and hung his YCS/186 gauss rifle across his back, sheathed his Bowie knife, blood nap, on his shoulder, and putting on his zap glove, paladin toaster, upon his right hand. Cockily, he thought, 'I'm ready to survive anything.' Walking into the next room, passing the vending machines, and entered the elevator, he pressed a glowing button and waited through elevator music.

As a light thud then beep heralded the doors opening, he stepped into the think tank, headed up the stairs, and was greeted by... silence. 'Normally, my ears are 'treated' with bickering, but this is creepy, what are they up to?' "Hey, Dalla, Zero, Eight, Klein, Borous, what gives?" Arms out, spinning slowly around, he looked questioningly at all the screens, terminals, blue lights, and various dull greys in the spacious room. Sighing, his eyes then rested on the large screen above the entrance, to see all five entering it's distorted, flickering view.

"THE LOBOTOMITE WHO SAVED US! WE HAVE PREPARED, AND THE TRANSPORTALPONDER MARK TWO IS READY!" Said Dr. Klein. Questioning their lack of sound logic, Will asked, "All I need is to step on that glowing panel over there, right?" They all in tandem said, "YES." Except for Eight , who had a malfunctioning speech module, as a 'gift' from Elijah, and spewed out a string of code.

"Where will I be transported? To China?" He said, chuckling lightly. "No, you will be transported to your space ship, then through it's teleporter to the next solar system, assisted by your transportalponder." Responded Zero, explaining it very quickly. Deciding he deserved one question before he was no longer on earth, he crossed his arms, and asked, "Will there be life, civilization?"

The floating brain-controlled robots turned to each other, considering they could not lie to the lobotomite who had helped them, saved them, and responded meaningfully in kind.

"We don't know, so we're sending you explore the closest planet in that solar system, and it looks possible." " [*...] ... [#-!-#] !" "YES, GO, AND EXPLORE THIS NEW PLANET!" "Good luck my teddy bear lobotomite." Dr. Zero, Eight, Klein, and Dalla all respectively regarded his mission, except Borous, who shouted as normal, "GOOD LUCK!"

Dr. Borous could be heard pressing buttons somewhere, then a blinding blue light flooded his eyes, and he felt like he was being dragged trough hell, then stuffed into a funnel. Overwhelmed with a feeling of compression, burning, pain. lances of bursting, red hot fire pushed through his veins, he tried to scream, but his mouth was lost, almost like it was out of his brain's reach, and he could only feel his head pounding, and needles poke his skin and bones, as he though, 'I need to get out, I need to escape!'

Then, he sat up with a start, "ARGH!" He then fell back, his metal armor and weapons hitting the stone floor with a resounding _CLANG. He lay there for what felt like hours but his helmet labeled as minutes, taking deep, controlled breathes through his multilayer riot gear helmet, and looked up into the vibrant blue sky, before he was brought back to Earth... scratch that, brought back to a distant planet. His shell-shocked mind belatedly realized, 'stone floor, clear blue sky, gear still on me.' _

"I made it! Aw hell yeah!" He shouted to no one in particular. Lifting himself to his full height of 5' 11" and checked his pipboy map and sensors, numbly realizing he had no satellite connection, and the atmosphere was just like earth's but without the ash, radiation, and pollution... wait there were the telltale signs of pollution, therefore industrialization, 'or disaster', but first things first, he scrolled over checking his gear.

'Check, check, check, check, check... wait I didn't bring my transportalponder.'

'Shit.'

He thought about his situation, sinking into the cold, familiar depths of depression, 'I will be stuck here, I'm going to die here. I might be the only one alive here.' He decided to focus, shaking his head, absent-minded while injecting a stimpak to heal the many burst blood veins and help pressurize to being in atmosphere, and scanned the area, taking note he was in a ruined stone temple. Not wanting to activate traps by touching the painfully obvious pedestals displaying chess pieces, he moved on with his fists up and ready, but stopped himself, awe-struck.

He had taken a dozen or so steps, and stopped, staring, staring _down_. Down at an expansive, densely forested valley, and what surprised him further, was the variety of sizable creatures wandering in the distance.

He crouched, drew his rifle, and scanned the valley, tagging these things, on a scale of one to ten based on the sized, and was disturbed by the look of some of the larger creatures. He sat there taking it in, until he heard a gun shot, and distant yelling. He heard small arms fire, and a high powered rifle, so he responded a accordingly by holstering his rifle and drawing both blasters, standing up, and sprinting to the sounds, eventually coming close enough to see a clearing connected to a path, and four teenage girls dressed odd, standing over twelve corpses of those beasts.

Though he could see them, they could not see him through his stealth field, and the bushes. He decided to sneak his way into their conversation, walking through to the middle of the clearing, and pointing both blasters at the two still holding their weapons, and de-cloaked, saying with authority and tinny distortion, "Now, I'm going to ask politely, who are you four, and what planet am I on. Answer quickly and I can put the weapons away."

They look at him, dumb-founded, before the yellow dressed one with gauntlets said through gritted teeth, "I could ask you the same, who the hell are you?" He chuckled loudly, and gave her a grin underneath his two helmets. "I just got here and there is already a girl with guts enough to ask my identity! Oh what next, a death claw tea party?" They all looked at each other, the girl in a red and black short skirt and buttoned jacket, probably the youngest, and saw her put away her scythe and adjust her bandoleer, mouthing _planet? Identity? Death claw?_

The one at his 5 o'clock spoke up, drawing his attention. Giving her a once over, he noted that she wore a white dress and had a silver short sword. "Well you're certainly not from Vale or any of the kingdoms." 'Kingdoms?' "I'm Weiss Schnee , the one pointing bladed sub machine guns at your armored head is Blake Belladonna, then that's Ruby Rose, eyeing your weapons, and the girl with gauntlets restraining from hitting you is Yang Xiao Long, so, who are you?"

"Some call me the Courier, others call me the lone wanderer, saviour, six, the list goes on, but only those I trust deserve my full name, so just call me Will. So what is a group of girls doing out here, fighting these things?"

"Alright you ass hat, stop lying and playing dumb, your surrounded." Yang yelled defiantly at him, glaring with anger. Blake decided to speak up and give input, "He's not lying, at least not entirely, and he hasn't shot yet, so we could bring him to Beacon, maybe professor Ozpin will be interested?" Ruby, always the weapon fanatic, asked awkwardly, "What kind of dust ammunition do those use?"

Immediately tilting his head in curiosity, Will decided to ask about this little revelation. "First, what's dust ammunition? B, I just want info, not a fight, and next, would you all please explain what's Beacon?" Upon finishing his sentence, he received four looks of surprise. "Really, your sure you didn't hit your thick head really really hard or something?"

"Weiss, he looks like he crawled out of a grave, look at his clothes!" Yang, intending to insult, for the third time this conversation ended up dumb-founded when he slowly, removed his helmet... to reveal another helmet? "Wow, he's some sort of robot!" Ruby earned a glare from Weiss and a dark chuckle from Will, behind a black skin-tight helmet with an orange glass face plate, wires running along the back of the helmet.

He then slid the face plate up on top of his head, revealing a young, scarred, fairly tanned face and dull green eyes, surrounded in a thin grey outline, dark blonde eye brows and a thin layer of mustache. They all gasped, looking at the many small scars, daunted by a trio of claw marks creating visibly deep gouges across his entire face. "Damn. The air here is so clean..."

Weiss, speaking with half-hearted intent decided to get back on track. "A-anyway, let me answer your questions. Dust is a power harnessed by humans and faunus to fight the Grimm, and Beacon is where we go, a school for fighters to be trained to fight the Grimm, like the one you're standing on." He looked down at his now bloodied boots, and said, "Huh, I never expected humanity on another planet, let alone black Yao guai and civilization."

As the group look and murmured to each other, Will slid down the faceplate and pulled on his helmet, crouched, and expertly pulled his YCS/186 gauss rifle and lined it up with an incoming aircraft, shouting, "contact 10 o'clock!" Which drew the attention of the four girls, all with weapons drawn until they sighted the aircraft, and relaxed. "Don't worry, it's a bullhead from Beacon, probably our ride!"

Ruby trying to calm him down, and walked over, receiving the large dusty metal barrel on her forehead. "Can. I. Trust. You." The edge in his voice was like a knife, but rather than cutting the thick tension, it created much more. "Hey! Get away from my sister you bit-" "Yang, he only asked if we're trust-worthy, and we are, so can you please put the rifle away from my face mister?"

Even with a helmet, he exuded concern, and uncertainty, as the high-pitched whine of engines grew gradually, nearly drowning out his response. "Fine, but don't expect me to return the favor of trust so quickly." Ruby looked around and as he put away his rifle and stood up, Ruby noticed his comment only reached her ears. This time, he raised his voice, "So, should I ride with you or just meet you there at Beacon?" He asked warily, expecting the answer to be 'no free rides.'

The roar of the engines peaked then settled to a quiet hum as the gunmetal grey door of the 'bullhead' opened, revealing a tranquil, grey haired man viewing through a set of glasses and sipping from a steaming cup of coffee. "No, being so close to Beacon, It won't be too much trouble. Oh, where are my manners, I'm headmaster Ozpin of Beacon academy for hunters and huntress's, and we already know your name."

While not entirely surprised that the students were being watch, he was surprised the head of such a school would come to pick up a group of students and him. "Not to depreciate you're effort to meet me, but surely there's a point to coming to meet me in person in your world's version of a vertibird, because I'm just one person and nobody gains anything from saying 'hi' then flying away."

Surely this headmaster wasn't planning what he thought he was planning. "But of course, you appear to be well armed and trained, but if you would holster your weapon and come with us, we may discuss a place for you at Beacon." "I accept but do not try to disarm me."

Refusing to holster his two sidearms, he climbed into the back seats, as Ozpin returned to the passenger seat in the cockpit. he sat in the middle on the left bank of seats, where the other was taken up by the group of students. Surviving an awkward flight, when hatch finally opened, he walked out with the headmaster and what he found out to be team RWBY.

"Team RWBY, you may return to your room, and prepare for tomorrow, I will speak with mister..." Internally debating, he wondered if they should know his last name, but decided against that. "Call me courier six or lone wanderer, I'm accustomed to those titles." "Those are titles, so why don't we refer to you by your name?" "Fine." Said Will.

Headmaster Ozpin, eager to move along as the girls left for their dorm room, began speaking with the courier. "Perhaps you would like to leave your things with us, it is a long walk and they look-" "No." The short, pointed answer only raised more questions.

As they journeyed to the office through hallways in silence, there were many glares and whispered rumors about the man in the armored duster. Is he from outside the kingdoms? What are those weapons? I hear they found him confused over in the initiation temple. Why doesn't he take his helmet off? I think he's a robot! As he continued hearing rumors through helmet's audio sensors, he chuckled internally, hearing a comment about being a robot through the hushed murmurs that followed his journey, and snorted. Raising an eyebrow at the sudden show of amusement, Ozpin eventually decided to ignore it, having enough questions on his mind.

Finally reaching the office, and entering through the large doors, he was met with a clean, and not clean like the ultra-luxe casino clean, but pre-war times clean, office, same as everything he saw of this world. "Glynda, I know you wished to go through the second year's grading records, but I must discuss with a guest in private."

Will's eyes fell upon a loud blonde woman in a white top, black cape lined with purple, and black business skirt buttoned on, with her hair in a bun. Upon looking up from a filing cabinet, she gave a huff and hurriedly packed up several folders and some sort of flat, sleek, foldable terminal. When they were alone, Ozpin sat down at his desk, sipping his coffee. "First, I must ask what circumstances left your here and who you are in more detail. Your possessions, accent, and words point to you not being native to remnant."

Stopping to take another sip from his coffee, he gave Will his full attention. "I... let's leave it at I teleported to the wrong planet..." he trailed off, unsure of what to say. "Well, just start explaining it all from the begining." Will his past to Ozpin, if only giving it all a cursory description. He told the headmaster of prewar Earth, the great war, vault 101, Megaton, the brotherhood, raiders, enclave, ghouls, slavery, radiation, super mutants, the NCR, legion, and the rest of his colorful history.

After finishing his long tale of his 27 years of life, Ozpin sipped his coffee, thinking long and carefully, over this man's life After what surely was an hour, Ozpin made a decision. "In you place, anyone else would have cracked or faltered under the pressure, yet you stand strong. I see great accomplishment and potential in you, so I offer you a place as one of Beacon's students." Taking a minute, Will went over and over the offer. 'I'm stuck here, and I have the time, equipment, and determination to take him up on is offer, so I need to know the draw-backs of it.

"I'll accept gladly, but I first must know the pros and cons of being a student."

Smiling lightly, Ozpin pulled out a stack of papers, saying, "You will recieve free housing, training, equipment, food, and ammunition, but first you must be willing to risk your life, and devote yourself to becoming a hunter. Since you're not yet a documented citizen, we also have to get you an ID and your citizenship papers, as well as agreeing to the terms in writing for Beacon application."

After finishing the paper work, and letting Ozpin store it all to be dealt with later, they both stood up and shook hands, Ozpin saying simply "Welcome to Beacon academy."


End file.
